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/ A Different Plan

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There are all sorts of demeaning things in life. Some are more or less negligible, like your parents embarrassing you at a family reunion. Others tend to be much more irksome, like your older sister still treating you like you're an infant. Although I love my sister, and I'm sure she does as well, Shimmer Shield sometimes forgets what age I am despite all her rigid formality. This lapse in her judgment usually tends to lead into situations like the one I suffered shortly after her massive scolding over my illegitimate relationship with her ex-stallion. Sitting in a bathtub with your sister over you, scrubbing your mane as if you can't do it yourself, is infuriating to even the most patient of younger brothers. Although she did a great job of cleaning my mane, the fact that I was sitting in warm, soapy water with her working her hooves through into my scalp did absolutely nothing to improve my mood. I couldn't help but assume that it was her way of expressing denial; that maybe, if she could treat me enough like her innocent younger brother then perhaps I'd go back to being that naíve foal she loved so much. Both of us knew that this was unnecessary, and I was perfectly capable of bathing on my own, but she felt the need to be there, and I could hardly blame her.

I knew the news about Cadenza had shocked her. She'd moved on from the subject frighteningly fast, almost to the point where it could be called cognitive dissonance. I'd expected her to call the guard, then alert my parents, but contrary to that line of logic she was acting as if she didn't know, and it had never happened. She spoke with an unnervingly light tone to her voice, as if everything was fine and she was overjoyed at life. We both knew this wasn't so, but I let her keep her façade of calm, if only to assure her to the fact that I was aware of how wrong it all was. I was indeed only a colt, and had no business doing such things with a stallion so many times my age. Despite this, it'd felt right in the heat of the moment, and it still did. A strange border separated what I felt was right in my heart, and what my mind told me was amoral. I'd caused my foalsitter to become infatuated with me, and I'd let that grow into something that most would call obsessiveness. I was the first and only young pony who'd ever been able to understand what Cadenza had wanted, and I'd fulfilled his needs perfectly. In his eyes I would always be special, even more so than Shimmer Shield, and that coupled with the fact that I was so young wounded my older sister terribly. Even if she didn't have the heart to show it.

"You should really scrub your mane better." My sister quipped, her lips pursed. "It'd look healthier."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked grumpily, facing straight forwards as to avoid looking at her. Although she was my older sister, and this was typical of her, that didn't stop it didn't stop the situation from being embarrassing. "You know I can bathe myself. I prefer showers anyways if I can help it."

"Because I'm trying to get you to feel younger, Dusk." She sighed, chewing her bottom lip. "You can't just expect me to be okay with this, can you? You're still a foal, not even a young stallion yet. You need to remember who you are, and just how old Cadenza is before you go making this decision again. You're still young enough to let your sister scrub your mane. You can't pretend you're a mature young stallion when your sister still does a better job of washing your hair than you do."

"I can wash my mane on my own." I grumbled, not wanting to move for fear of her ripping out a clump of my mane. "You're being ridiculous."

"You're being loose with your body, not to mention irresponsible." She shot back, raising her voice a bit. "Pardon me for taking comfort in the fact that you're still so young. You can still undo this, Dusk. Just tell Cadenza you don't want him anymore and everything can go back to normal."

"Normal?" I hissed, turning to look at her. "I can sit around the house all summer while you go out every weekend with your marefriends, having a great time while I sit here summoning spirits for company? Mom and Dad can go back go crushing everything I like while you go live a daydream? Cadenza can keep these quirks of his locked up until eventually he snaps and does something awful to a foal who is nowhere near as mature as me? Then he can get in trouble, then locked up, is that what you want? Would that solve anything?"

She glared down at me furiously as she grated her response. "That wasn't what I said."

"It's what you implied." I snapped. "You just want Cadenza in trouble because you can't think of me as your little Dusky anymore." I faltered as I spoke the pet name, rolling my eyes. "Not only that, but you're the one who could have avoided this whole situation in the first place of you weren't so... pompous! If you'd only let him experiment a bit he would never have come to me. Has that ever occurred to you? It's because you couldn't unbend your pride just a tiny bit for the stallion you loved, that we're sitting here right now. If you'd have just let him explore, you wouldn't need to be treating me like I'm a three year old, and Fall Reeds wouldn't have a convenient gap in her memory!"

Shimmer Shield blanched, her face draining of emotion. "Y-you know about Fall Reeds?" She stuttered, blinking in disbelief. "He never told anypony about that night..."

"Not only do I know that, but I know you were so appalled by the idea of just taking a leap of faith with Cadenza that you left him." I concluded my rant, facing her with an expression of annoyance. "Aside from that... I'm glad this happened. Cadenza is the one pony who treats me like I'm an adult. He doesn't coddle me like you do, and or make me into a little tin marching soldier like Dad and Mom. He accepts these parts of me... and I accept his advances, and what he wants from me. I want those things from him too. I want those carnal urges he has taken out on me... as undignified as that sounds."

"You're thirteen!" She roared, outrage and frustration plain on her face. "You shouldn't even have these urges! He's the one who introduced you to sex in the first place! If you hadn't had sex with him you wouldn't have wanted anything sensual for another three years! Not only are you not ready to be making these decisions, you shouldn't feel the needs Cadenza does. You're not old enough to want these things, no matter how mature you are. Your body isn't even ready for this yet."

"So what then?" I asked, lowering my voice in an attempt to calm her down. "Am I supposed to go find somepony my age to satisfy me? I don't have many options, Shimmer. Hardly anypony my age knows what sex is, and I have needs to satisfy now. Cadenza more than satisfies me, and he's a lot more tolerant than my family at this point. Mom and Dad think I'm becoming a deviant and you... you want to keep me young forever. You're so strict it's like I'm another guard under your command. He fills the gap in my life where there should be understanding and kindness. The gap you and Dad leave..."

"What do you mean our parents think you're a deviant? Why would they think that? You're smart, you always look your best, and you do everything you're told... you're practically all they could ask for."

"Almost everything." I sighed, rinsing my mane sullenly. "Remember when you walked in a few hours ago, and I had your nightgown on? Since you left, I sometimes I liked to dress in your clothes, to remind me of you... and sometimes whenever the insults get to be too much I like to feel good about myself. Wearing those clothes makes me feel comfortable, and satisfied with my image, I guess. I get called ugly a lot by the other ponies at school, so looking pretty helps sometimes. When Mom and Dad caught me, though... it was pretty bad, and soon after that they started noticing the way I looked at other colts, and how I reacted when they were around. The pieced things together, and they began keeping me home during the summer. I wasn't allowed to leave."

She blanched, as if she couldn't believe that our parents would put me through such neglect. "So because you liked other colts... they never let you leave home?" She asked, trying to follow a line of logic I hadn't explained yet.

"They think I'm a disgrace." I stated simply. "They think I'll make a mockery of the family if I leave home and let my... fondness of other colts show too much."

"Well... I could help with that." She said, hoping to gain my trust back. "I could talk to them, explain to them that it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Cadenza already offered."

"Well now I'm offering, and I think they'll listen to me more than they would to him. Besides, I can transfer over to local patrol and be here all the time instead of being off at the castle. That way I can make sure you're not lonely, and we can go do fun stuff together, just like the old days."

"What about Cadenza, though?" I asked, unable to think of what she'd want in exchange. "Do I really need to end it?"

"If you don't want me to turn Cadenza in, then yes." She warned. "Not only that, but you'll never see me again if you stay with him. I refuse to be a part of that, no matter how much you consent."

"What will I do for romantic comfort then?" I questioned. "I can't just go from being loved to having nopony, Shimmer."

She bit her bottom lip, seeing my cheeks flush red as we turned onto the subject. "Can't you just do what most colts your age do when they're alone?" She suggested tactlessly, her tone expressing just how awkward it was for her to be discussing the topic.

"That's hardly a solution to somepony who's had the real thing. Three times." I said, my eyes narrowed to half-moons with how base her suggestion was. "Unlike ponies who've never had sexual interactions, I've had a taste of how it feels. Nothing I could do to myself can equal that and you know it."

"You'll have to deal with it, because the next time I find that you've been with him, I'll make sure to tell somepony. Probably law enforcement."

"So you'd let me suffer loneliness instead of being with him?" I questioned, my voice probably betraying how arbitrary the decision seemed. "That's the solution?"

"You won't be alone, I'll be here."

"You know what I mean."

Her expression changed as she realized what I meant by that, from triumphant to crestfallen. She knew quite well what I'd meant, and she'd wish on all the shooting stars in the sky to just skim over the one unfortunate factor in her decision. I'd be alone yet again, after having been introduced to carnal pleasures far beyond my ability to resist. The simple fact of the matter was that she didn't have a solution to that, no matter how hard she might try. There wasn't anything she could say or do to prevent me from going through withdrawal. I'd grown accustomed to the urges of the flesh, and my hunger for them had just barely been sated. It was only a matter of time before I wanted somepony else, before I pined after another pony to be my stallion. It simply couldn't be helped, as I was a creature just like any other. I craved companionship on a level a sibling couldn't provide while staying within the realm of morality, not to mention legality. No matter how much Shimmer Shield wanted to protect me and keep me as her younger brother, she couldn't stop me from longing for the relationships she deemed unhealthy.

She stood and shook her head, blinking as if I'd stunned her. She threw the towel on the granite countertop and walked out, closing the door behind her. I finished bathing myself after she left, wondering just how I was supposed to make this work. There were no right answers here. If I sided with Shimmer Shield then I was on the side of morality and legality, but deprived myself of companionship. If I sided with Cadenza I had companionship and acceptance, but the relationship was amoral, as well as illegal. I wanted a pony by my side, but I wanted a pony in bed next to me, too, without feeling the crushing guilt of how wrong it was.

I came downstairs to the sound of dishes clattering, coupled with the familiar aroma of fried vegetables filling the air. In the kitchen Shimmer Shield was making dinner, sighing and shaking her head at how disorganized the cookware had gotten in her absence. Something that my older sister always did in our house was cook; it was simply something that came naturally to her. Besides that, my parents were far too busy to make us a full meal. Shimmer's reputation as a good chef didn't just end at home though, and she also commonly told stories about making strange dishes for the guards back at the castle. She enjoyed challenging herself to make new, more exotic dishes, but on this specific occasion she was making my favourite meal; fried bell peppers, with a side of salad. I knew why she was being so nice, going out of her way to make me something she didn't even like. I knew from personal experience that she hardly ever touched anything with the prefix 'fried' in front of it, as anything soaked in canola oil was likely to upset the strict health regime she had in place.

Still, she shook the pan the vegetables cooked in, not even glancing back at me as I took a seat at the table. She was trying to win me back over to her the same way mothers did to their sons, coming back home after such a long time. She was being unnaturally calm and cordial to me because she was afraid of me slipping further away from her, and catering to me was her way of not only calming herself down, but also bring me back to her. She still wanted to think of me as her little brother, and that was okay, but her ways of expressing that was to ensure that I saw how much she still viewed me as dependent upon her. She'd been gone for two years, two unbearably long summers had passed with me trotting those halls, alone and without purpose, and now that she'd returned she expected me to fall back into the routine of letting her cook my meals, as if I hadn't been forced to learn that skill for myself. I knew every aspect of living alone, from cooking for myself to ordering new books, to cleaning and all the way down to shopping on my own. Yet still she was treating me as if I'd never endured those two years of purgatory-esque loneliness, and all I could do was endure her incessant mollycoddling.

"So how's school been since I left?" She asked, hoping to break the ice again.

"Terrible." I replied, hoping that would end the conversation.

I glanced her biting her bottom lip, holding back the urge to continue that conversation. "Dusk, why are you acting like this? It's as if you don't want me around anymore."

"I want you around, I really do, but you just came through the door after two years and now you're making me dinner!" I exclaimed, letting her see how confused I was. "It just feels weird, having you trot back into my life after being so alone all the time. I spent so much time, just lying in bed and staring out the window after you left. I can't even tell you how long it was until I could walk into your room again. It hurt, not having you around... you were always on my side, helping me up and making sure I was alright. You kept Mom and Dad off my back, but with you gone it felt like they were always breathing down my neck, making sure I did everything they wanted me to... marching in just the right rhythm. When they figured out about me... things got terrible. Forget being trapped in the house, they never let me leave my room. They saw it in me before I did, the way I crossed my legs sometimes, how I'd brush my mane behind my ear, it all added up to them way before I did the math."

"You make it sound like they're awful." Shimmer Shield rolled her eyes skeptically, scraping the vegetables off onto a plate. "They never treated me that way."

"Well you were their perfect child." I muttered under my breath, then continued at a volume she could hear. "They really were awful. You might not have seen it, but they favoured you over me. Hooves down, they'd spend more money on you rather than throw half a bit my way. Besides... they still think I'm a disgrace."

Shimmer fell silent again as she pondered this, wondering how much truth lay behind my words. She'd always had a nagging fear that our parents far preferred her to me, but here the topic was tossed out into the light, where she could see just how much it affected us. For the first time she was beginning to see the perhaps her parents were proud of her, not because she was so good at physical skills or had a wide range of talents, but because she was so good at being like them. They liked wealth, and intelligence, as well as an ability to be very strict. She had all of that, but when she glanced over at me, sitting across the table, she hardly saw any of those traits. Of course nopony could deny that I was bright for somepony my age, but I loathed unnecessary monotony, whereas she craved discipline and predictability in her schedule.

Hoping to avoid any further discussion on the topic, she repeated herself. "So how's school?"

The mention of the word 'school' conjured up two different images in my head. One, the correct viewing of a building constructed for the specific purpose of learning, was that of a classroom full of foals, all eager to learn something new with an extremely well-trained, equally content teacher. The other was the much less idealistic, and much more realistic. The latter image in my head was a disheartened, underpaid mare, sitting at her desk, telling a group of inattentive, immature and poorly raised foals to take out hulking textbooks to study, then do their homework. Anything but to expend actual energy in legitimate teaching. The foals, with attention spans and maturity levels that so miniscule they couldn't be measured without using the prefix 'micro', then proceed to turn to each other and talk, while a select few want to cry and scream at the teacher that they aren't doing their jobs correctly, but still proceed to do their work, frustrated beyond belief at their peers and teachers.

To coalesce those thoughts into words, I simply answered. "It's terrible."

"Is it really so bad?" She asked persistently, still looking at me skeptically.

"The red marks on the back of my neck from being snapped with rubber bands would attest to how horrid that place is."

We lapsed into silence again, neither of us wanting to talk about it. She'd had an amazing time in school, having been one of those students who got 'preferential treatment' because she was so tolerant of their abhorrent teaching methods. She didn't really have to try very hard and she got good grades, mainly because my parents were quick to complain if their perfect foal got anything below an accelerated grade. Of course they were never eager to defend me, saying that I possessed the 'natural talent' to make it without their help. I didn't get into the same classes as Shimmer, as my quick and frequent complaints towards the teachers made the whole staff loathe teaching me. None of them wanted to waste their time coaxing us to learn, not when they'd spent years of their life with that wasted approach. They were more content to let us drown in ceaseless tides of homework, rather than take their time and make sure we understood the subject matter. I couldn't recall the amount of times I had to learn the whole lesson out of the book, and only learn by hard trial and error. Even when I spoke up about their lackadaisical methods of learning, they refused to hear me, with the principal marking me as a delinquent for 'disrupting classroom tranquility'.

Not wanting my thoughts to turn towards the students of the school, and how they only fed the staff's irritating practices, I turned to the food in front of me and lost myself in the flavour of cooked peppers. I picked up the saltshaker and sprinkled some out, setting it down and sighing. I wanted to tell Shimmer everything, but I knew it would have to wait. At the moment she was still struggling to accept my relationship with Cadenza, in the only way she truly knew how. The meal progressed in silence, the schism between us wider than ever. This continued, until finally she set her fork down, looking across the table at me with pity.

"I know you feel abandoned, Dusk." She admitted. "That I left you when you couldn't possibly do all of this on your own. I know you hated school, and without me Mom and Dad can get pretty off base. But I'm here again; you don't have to stay in this bubble anymore. I can do things for you, and you don't have to pretend to be stronger than you are. I know you had to distance yourself a lot while I was gone, and Cadenza comforted you by understanding in a way nopony else could, but now you need to come back, because I'm here again. I'll see to it that nothing else happens, and that our parents understand what's going on. You don't need Cadenza, you have me to protect you."

"You can't be everypony, Shimmer." I sighed, finishing the last of my food and setting my fork down. "I'm sure you believe I'm too young for this, and now that you're here I'll go back to relying on you the way I as before you left, but you can't be my only support forever. You can't be the only pony I rely on, and you can't mean the same thing to me as Cadenza."

"Why not?" She protested, leaning across the table. "Why can't I be your friend?"

"Because, Cadenza wasn't just a friend." I replied, getting down from the table. "He didn't just offer to protect me, or help me accept who I am. He was somepony you just can't be."

"And just what can't I be to you?" She grated.

"You can't love me that way." I sighed, picking up her plate and levitating it over to the sink.

She once again went blank, unable to respond. Again that one fact stood in the way of her ultimate success; she simply couldn't have those expectations of me. As a sibling a barrier bound her, a barrier almost as powerful as the years between Cadenza and me. She knew I was right, and that she could never offer me the physical support and comfort Cadenza did. Despite this, she still shook her head, as if to further deny my statement.

"You don't need to be loved that way, Dusk." She said, standing up to leave the room. "You're too young. You'll learn that you don't need it. Until then... you just have to learn to live without Cadenza."

"There you go again... denying the facts." I muttered, turning on the sink and rinsing off the dishes. "You can't pretend I'm still the same after what Cadenza and I had. I have needs too, strange as that might sound. I know it's hard, knowing that I'm not your little Dusky anymore, but you've got to accept it."

"What changed, though?!" She shouted, storming over and stopping just short of crashing into me. "What could change you so much in two years, Dusk? Can being alone for all that time be so bad, that you'd be forced to grow up so soon?"

"It's strange what a pony can do with four months of unbroken solitude." I said, darting around the subject. "I lost my naiveté a long time ago, Shimmer. When everypony at school calls me things... when I accidentally found the books Mom and Dad purposefully pulled off the shelves of the library so we wouldn't find them, when I summoned a spirit from Tartarus, all of those things tend to make a pony grow up and see the world for what it is."

"What books are you talking about?" Shimmer asked, having been unaware of the proverbial 'forbidden reading' she'd been kept from. "And what spirit did you summon?"

"The books that pertain to the spirits of Tartarus." I replied, finishing the dishes and putting them on the counter to dry. "What they do, why they're damned to such a terrible realm... amongst other things. Besides that, they kept a lot of books on anatomy hidden from us, as well as quite a few body-modification spells. Things most parents would keep from their children, I suppose."

"I took a whole course about Tartarian demons, Dusk." She said, tapping a hoof. "You didn't answer my other question. Which one did you summon?"

I remained pointedly silent, unwilling to tell her the extent of the damage. I'd summoned a starving succubus, much to my later regret. They're extremely pitiful creatures, succubae. Their only source of food is the sexual energy of mortal creatures, and sadly those trapped in the horrid realm were kept apart from one another, doomed to starve for eternity. The one I summoned was beyond hope, having appeared and immediately begged me to be its prey. Seeing as how it was sealed inside a protective barrier, it couldn't outright attack me. I'd denied it, but I listened to its persuasions for over half an hour before I finally managed to dispel the poor thing. It kept stopping me, offering me anything I wanted for food. I knew what it considered to be feeding, and I made the choice to banish it back to Tartarus. In hindsight, it would have been more humane to simply turn it loose, instead of depriving it of any chance feed again.

Seeing that I wasn't going to tell her anything, she gave up and turned to a different topic. "Well... what happened at school?" She asked, being much less demanding in tone in a bid for my compliance.

"You can only be called so many demeaning names before you begin to wish for a little reprisal." I said. "Besides... without you to back me up there's nothing stopping anypony from pushing me down stairs, or hitting my horn when they walk by. Just... so many little things that add up into a lot of frustration. I'm tired of being shoved into a wall when I try to fight back, since I only have so much magic. They know I can't cast high-level spells, and I'm too weak to stand up to them. Using magic without permission is banned in school, so I can't just teleport between classes or make myself invisible without getting in trouble. Any steps I could take to pre-emptively stop them from bullying me are prevented by the rules, and I can't stop it once they're already doing it. Just... it's frustrating, and I've gotten sick of it."

"But does that really make you mature?" Shimmer asked. "Does having a terrible time at school and being really smart make you an adult?"

"No." I said, shaking my head. "Not on its own. It does accelerate the process, though. That's not what makes an adult. An adult is made by how they handle knowledge, and how they respond to things. I tolerate the things that happen at school, and I understand why our parents kept that stuff from us. Regardless of whether you think I'm ready or not, the things I did with Cadenza happened, and can't be changed. I've grown, and now I have needs just like any other pony. No matter how much you want to think otherwise, those are facts."

"It's how we respond." Shimmer said, putting a hoof on my shoulder. "Will you do the right thing, though? No matter your mental age, you're still thirteen. Physiologically speaking, you're not fully developed emotionally. It's against the law, and you're still too young no matter how much you might deny it. You want me to face facts, but you can't tell me to do that without facing some yourself."

I shrugged her hoof off, shaking my head. "I'll heed your wish, because you're my older sister and I love you, and it's what the law says is right, but don't expect me to be happy about it."